JREF Swift Blog

﻿﻿We were flooded with weird and interesting stories all week. Back to normal...

Here is a rundown of the top stories in pseudoscience, anomalies and general stuff that might make you a little discouraged from the past week courtesy of Doubtful News.

There were several stories about curious phenomena that turned out to be NOT so mysterious.

Doubtful News collected information on the colors of ice regarding the photo of the black iceberg circulating around the net.

We also checked seismic records to find a link to the mystery boom noises last week in Oklahoma.

There was also a strange radar anomaly spotted in Illinois. Energy beam?

An exploding UFO video can be rather neatly explained as an exploding weather balloon. Why did the media outlets typically not even bother to consider this? That may ruin the story.

Do you recall that story from last spring when a woman in California was burned when beach rocks she collected were contaminated with phosphorus? We can make a good guess where that chemical originated but the possible source isn't being revealed.

You can read about the burning rocks story and our list our favorite Doubtful News stories of 2012 in this special post.

Two notable deaths were reported this week. Mr. Randi announced the death of friend and skeptic Bob Steiner. And cryptozoologist and hunter of the Mongolian Death Worm, Ivan Mackerle, has passed.

There were three stories related to the Sandy Hook tragedy. First, as the children returned to school, a neighboring town burned media they feel contributed to the attack.

A story came out in the media of a mother who claimed her son has psychic abilities that made him feel uncomfortable at the elementary school.

A Virginia district closed school as they took seriously a wild idea about Illuminati plans coded into a Batman movie.